Signifying Nothing: Easier Done than Said?
Résumé
This essay takes as its starting point a paradox inherent in the theatrical use of language: the communication of meaning renders the representation of 'pure' folly--nonsense--problematic and unstable. This paradox is explored with reference to a number of instances drawn from the early modern English theatre but also from certain French 'miracles'. On the basis of the latter, it is hypothesised that the character-types of the wise fool and the pretended fool may have a double heritage, at once theatrical and theological. Not only is their nonsense mediated and contextualised by meaning--in several forms--but their folly vacillates between divine and human aspects.